Dasavatharam (2008)

The hugely anticipated release of Kamal Hasan’s mega budget movie – Dasavathaaram (தசாவதாரம்) got released yesterday after many delays. Apart from the inherent delays due to the complexity of producing the movie, there were many court cases against the movie and the producer V.Ravichandran had to even change his film production company’s name from OSCAR to AASCAR due to a legal notice from Hollywood (Economic Times news yesterday) in the last few days.

Kamal stars in 10 roles in the movie. The movie (details here) is released in almost all theatres in the city (and in the state) and in all the shows. Adding to this Government has also allowed few extra shows at 9AM, etc. , even then when I checked with few theatres I was told the movie is full for next 15 days. Luckily my wife got two tickets for today (second day of the movie) 11:25AM show at INOX City Centre. Show started 10-15 late as the earlier show got delayed, the movie is a long one nearly 3 hours with a brief 5 minute intermission. There was a huge queue to even get into the theatre :-)

The story line of the movie is very simple and nothing exceptional – just a routine action chase film. The first half of the movie was boring and very long, the intermission came only after 2 hours. Kamal has done the story, screenplay and dialogue, so in his signature style there are few atheist touches – the 13th Century “Nambi” story possibly hurting a bit of religious sentiments. The second half was more interesting, especially where all the characters converge into the single climax moment. Lot of hard work seems to have gone into making of the movie – in the direction, acting, makeup, stunts, planning, etc. which has to appreciated greatly. Tamil movie industry has been elevated several steps with this movie – no doubts on that. The story and music could have been better. Movie is all about Kamal, with only two other characters having some role – Asin and M S Baskar. Kamal has roped in Jayaprada for a role in a Tamil Movie that too a song after a long time. Mallika Sherawat doing a song sequence and few fight scenes.

Dasavatharam (தசாவதாரம்)

The ten roles Kamal dons are:

Rangaraja Nambi – 13th Century Vaishnavaite

Govind Ramasamy -the “Hero”, a scientist

Christian Fletcher – Villain (Ex-CIA Agent)

Balaram Naidu – The funny CBI officer with nice Telugu Accent

George Bush – American President (surprising why Kamal wanted to do this role, compared to other roles not very impressive)